The Long Kill

by Reginald Hill

  It was the best he could do by way of reassurance, but Ford’s face was still stony with suspicion. He didn’t want to have to resort to the threat of the gun again and he added urgently, ‘Look, Ford, I know enough already about you. I know you’re a courier, I know that you work for Jacob …’

  ‘Jacob? Who works for Jacob? Not me. I’ve never met him in my life, though I’ve heard enough about the bastard!’

  He spoke with indignation as though working for Jacob was as low as a man could sink. Curiously hurt, Jaysmith found himself for a brief moment tempted to contradict, but that would have been stupid and pointless and re-aroused Ford’s suspicions. As it was, he managed to do this by saying, ‘But Bryant deals direct with Jacob. They were talking together on the phone here.’

  ‘Were they? That surprises me. He must be in real trouble then. But how the hell do you know what Jacob’s voice sounds like?’

  ‘I heard Bryant use the name, that’s all,’ lied Jaysmith. ‘And it was what this man Jacob was saying that made me realize Bryant was threatened.’

  This flimsy piece of extemporization proved surprisingly successful at convincing Ford, or perhaps it was simply that the man, despite his tough appearance, was frightened enough to grasp at any ally. The tension left his body and he held out his glass for more whisky.

  Jaysmith poured and said casually, ‘So. You’re a courier, are you? Nothing more?’

  ‘You know that too?’

  ‘I guessed it.’

  Ford smiled wanly and said, ‘So much for secret service! All right. That’s what I am, from time to time, from place to place. And Stefan, he’s even less. That’s what makes all this business so stupid!’

  The floodgates were now open and he spoke freely. He had been recruited via another Polish expatriate in the early seventies whose attention had been attracted by Ford’s strong anti-communist attitudes plus the ready access his job as a drug company salesman gave him to Eastern Europe.

  ‘I carry things, that’s all. What I carry, I often do not know. What’s it matter? I’m told it will help in the anti-Russian struggle, and that’s quite enough for me.’

  He spoke rather defiantly and seemed surprised at Jaysmith’s sympathetic nod.

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘We’ve all had to take things on trust.’

  The only difference being that what he had taken on trust was more than twenty lives.

  ‘How did you meet Bryant?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t. Urszula did.’

  ‘Urszula who is Ota.’

  ‘That was a childish name. Her second name’s Dorota, and Ota was the best she could manage. When she got older, she insisted on being called Urszula. That’s when I got worried, when I went to visit her and met this stranger she allowed to call her Ota!’

  ‘How had they met?’

  ‘She works in the university library in Krakow. Stefan had permission to use its facilities for research into some book he’s writing. It was a common interest, the identity of Poland or some such thing.’

  ‘You say you got worried. Why?’

  ‘It’s a neurotic country, Poland,’ said Ford gloomily. ‘You suspect everything. The thing was Ota – Urszula – was getting more and more involved with the protest movement.’

  ‘You mean Solidarity?’

  ‘That’s its public side. There are plenty of other more secret and subversive dimensions. I won’t deny there was a selfish side to my concern. If Urszula drew UBEK’S attention to herself, they were certainly going to be interested in her young brother with the British passport too. So when I saw how friendly she and this Stefan Bryant were becoming I passed his name on to my London control and suggested they should check.’

  ‘And the result?’

  ‘The good news was that he was absolutely clear. The bad news was that he’d actually done some undercover work with the SOE during the war and someone got the bright idea of recruiting him to the courier service. So all I’d managed to do to protect my sister was to get the man she was involved with into the same dangerous game as myself.’

  ‘Hardly your fault,’ said Jaysmith. ‘He’d have to agree to be recruited.’

  Ford smiled and said, ‘You don’t know Urszula. Stefan’s a man of strong character, but he’s met his match there. Her own commitment is so total that there’s no way a man could love her and remain apolitical. I think he was probably sympathetic to the cause to start with. After Urszula finished with him, he’d be totally conditioned and ripe for official recruitment in the great anti-communist struggle!’

  ‘And how much actual responsibility did – does – Bryant have?’

  ‘As little as me,’ shrugged Ford. ‘Less. He works purely into Poland while I’m much more general. A mere message carrier, or at the most, the occasional parcel.’

  ‘Then how does it come about that a mere messenger can be targeted as a traitor responsible for the betrayal and deaths of important people?’ mused Jaysmith.

  ‘It’s just not possible!’ proclaimed Ford. ‘I refuse to believe it!’

  His vehemence surprised Jaysmith. Nothing that had been said indicated a particularly close relationship with Bryant, certainly not one productive of such defensive indignation.

  Then it hit him.

  ‘It’s Urszula you’re bothered about, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The only real access to information that he would have must be Urszula. In fact, his only known contact with Poland during the past year has been via these letters you brought back for him from Urszula …!’

  ‘There was nothing in them. Nothing!’ protested Ford. ‘I read them. I told Urszula I must be able to read them, to make sure I knew they contained nothing incriminating, in case I was checked and they were discovered. They are love letters, nothing more, nothing less!’

  He looked ready to explode and Jaysmith hastily poured him some more whisky.

  ‘Who told you what was happening?’ he asked.

  ‘A friend in London. He works at the control bureau. He visited me yesterday on another matter to do with my next visit to Poland. During the conversation he suggested I would be wise not to try to see Bryant before I left …’

  ‘Were you planning to?’ demanded Jaysmith.

  ‘I rang him up yesterday morning,’ said Ford. ‘To ask if he had any letters he wished me to take to Urszula. He has not seen her for nearly a year, you know. I think it is because he did not wish to leave his daughter after she was widowed. Even at a low level, it is a risky business being a courier, and he felt he could not take such a risk till he was happy that Anya was recovered.’

  ‘And did he have a letter?’

  ‘Yes. Also he told me about this accident. I was most distressed. I said I would come to see him next weekend before I went so that I could pick up the letter and be able to give Urszula a first-hand report on how he looked.’

  ‘And yesterday afternoon you were warned off,’ mused Jaysmith. He’d been right not to trust the telephones in Naddle Foot. They must be bugged. ‘What did your friend say?’ he asked.

  ‘Very little at first. He tried to give the impression it was just a routine check-up. But I remembered the other one then and I got angry and told him I would go to see Stefan anyway, and then he told me how serious it was. I couldn’t believe it. I lay awake all night thinking about it. I know my sister could not be involved in such a thing; I was almost as certain of Stefan too. I had to speak to him, and I daren’t use the phone.’

  So he too had worked it out, thought Jaysmith approvingly.

  ‘So you drove up to see him.’

  He didn’t mean to sound accusing, but so it must have emerged.

  ‘What else could I do?’ protested Ford. ‘I parked a long way down the road in case anyone was watching. And I pulled this absurd old hat I never wear any more over my brow and wrapped my scarf round my face to prevent recognition.’

  ‘Bravo,’ mocked Jaysmith gently. ‘And when you heard my car approaching, you hid. Bravo again.’

 
; ‘I am not a secret agent like in the thrillers, Mr Wainwright,’ said Ford, not without dignity. ‘The risks I take are a smuggler’s risks, knowing when to smile at customs officials, when to be indignant. I carry no weapons, have no expertise in kung-fu, would probably have a heart attack if I had to run a hundred yards. Of course I bloody well hid!’

  He spoke with convincing force, but for all that Jaysmith did not feel he would care to come within receiving distance of a blow from those burly arms.

  He said, ‘Just now when you said that your London friend tried to give the impression it was just a routine security check on Bryant, you remembered the other one. What other one?’

  ‘About six months ago, they ran a check on Stefan. It happens to all of us from time to time. Security clearance can’t be forever, can it? Usually it’s just a simple simultaneous check: that is, they question the subject and his associates at the same time and cross-reference their stories.’ He laughed without much humour and said, ‘That’s what I thought you were doing when we first met, Mr Wainwright. I didn’t like the sound of those questions about the neighbours you’d been asking poor Wendy Denver. Then I left you in my house alone. I have a security camera hidden in my study, Mr Wainwright. I checked when I came back and there you were, rummaging around. I nearly challenged you there and then!’

  ‘Instead, you decided to take the piss by telling me the story of your life!’

  ‘It amused me to bore you by making you hear harmless details I was sure you would have in your file already,’ said Ford bitterly.

  ‘Tell me about this check on Bryant,’ said Jaysmith.

  ‘At the time it seemed straightforward enough. Two men called on me at my office. They were quite open. They showed me their credentials. I checked them and they were in order. It was just a routine check on Bryant, they said.’

  ‘And was it just routine?’ enquired Jaysmith.

  Ford frowned and said, ‘It was very thorough, but that’s not unusual. They started by asking about Stefan’s relationship with my sister.’

  ‘Did that surprise you?’

  Ford shrugged.

  ‘It’s their business to know such things, but I knew that Stefan and Urszula had kept their affair very quiet from the start. It was in their natures. And once Stefan began to work as a courier, they had double reason to keep a low profile. But like I say, it’s hard to keep anything from the Service. What did bother me was that they knew about the letters.’

  ‘The ones you brought for him? Why should that worry you?’

  ‘Only selfishly,’ said Ford. ‘At least, then my worry was merely selfish. Technically I should have mentioned in my reports that I was carrying letters between the two of them, but it was a private matter, a family matter, so I hadn’t bothered. Now they knew.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘And were you reprimanded?’

  ‘Obliquely. It was suggested that I ought now to be completely open. It was the kind of suggestion that hinted they knew many other things already, and if I didn’t mention them all, this would be taken very unkindly. They were just a pair of youngsters, but, by Christ, they frightened me! I was glad to see the back of them. This is what I remembered when my London friend started flannelling about a routine check. It struck me that two checks in such a short space meant trouble, and suddenly it was quite clear that the last one had been anything but routine. But I suppose I was so relieved that I didn’t get into hot water myself that I just took it at face value.’

  ‘They didn’t seem too bothered about the letters, then?’

  ‘No. In fact they told me specifically it was OK if I went on carrying them.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, I’ve only been back once since then and I took a letter from Stefan and brought one back from Urszula. I read it, as always. I may have skipped through the others, but this one I read very carefully, believe me. I’m no fool, Mr Wainwright, and those fellows had frightened me, routine or not. There was nothing in it, I swear. Nothing! All this is some ghastly error. It has to be!’

  He is hopelessly biased, of course, thought Jaysmith. Like me. I’m hopelessly biased too.

  He glanced at his watch. Time was passing, too much time. If the house was being watched, then they would know he was here with Ford, or at least with someone if Ford’s elementary disguise tactic had worked. Would they make a move? Perhaps. The sooner Ford got safely away, the better. There was no reason for him to get tangled up in this. Also there was the possibility if they delayed much longer that Anya and Bryant would return. Ford’s presence and its explanation would only cause more complication and things were complicated enough already.

  But there were still things he wanted to ask.

  ‘These two men, what were they like?’

  ‘Like? Well, youngish. One was very blond, a good-looking young chap in a pop-starish kind of way. The other wasn’t quite so young, long black hair, one of those ten o’clock shadow beards, nose a bit twisted as though someone had broken it for him.’

  ‘Did they have names?’

  ‘Yes, though I doubt if they were their real names. The blond called himself Mr Adam and the other one was Mr Davey.’

  Adam and Davey. No simple security vetters these, but Jacob’s men. And now Adam was a decomposing corpse in whatever grave Jacob set aside for his deceased operatives.

  And Davey, where was he?

  He glanced towards the window, and the hunched-up fells looked indifferently back.

  ‘What did they ask about Bryant?’ he pursued.

  ‘They just made me go over every contact I’d had with him back for almost a year,’ said Ford.

  ‘Anything in particular? Was there anything in particular that interested them?’

  ‘Just one thing,’ said Ford slowly. ‘About six months earlier, that is a year ago from now, Stefan got in touch. He was going to Poland a short while after. That was his last visit as it turned out. He hasn’t been back since, hence the need for these letters. He asked if there was anything for him to carry. I checked and there wasn’t. Then he asked if I could do something for him in my capacity as a drug salesman. Someone over there in Krakow had asked for it specially as a personal favour. Well, with shortages like there are, it was understandable, and I said yes.’

  ‘What was it?’ interrupted Jaysmith.

  ‘It was one of my firm’s packs of insulin capsules,’ said Ford. ‘Adam and Davey didn’t seem all that interested in this. I had to mention it, of course. For all I knew, Stefan had told them already, or was telling someone else a hundred miles away. But, as I explained, there was no danger. Even if Polish customs spotted them, all that Stefan had to do was say he was a diabetic. What’s that?’

  Jaysmith had heard the sound a moment earlier but he had been so riveted by what Ford was telling him that he had ignored it. But with Ford on his feet now, alarm brutalizing his boxer’s face, the conversation was obviously at an end.

  ‘It’s a car,’ he said. ‘It sounds like Anya’s Fiat.’

  He went to a window overlooking the front of the house. The Fiat was coming up the drive.

  Ford had relaxed when he realized it was only the Bryants returning but Jaysmith, bustling round the room, replacing the whisky bottle and concealing the glasses, said, ‘Don’t sit down. You’d better be on your way.’

  ‘What for?’ demanded the other in surprise.

  Jaysmith frowned. The only answer was that he himself had a dozen reasons for not wanting Ford and Bryant to talk just now. But none of them felt good enough to persuade the man to flight. Nor would the gun help. The time for threats was past. Besides, Ford would know he was not about to use it with the Bryants on the doorstep.

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘It’s better this way. For Stefan and Anya, I mean. I’ll get in touch in a day or two and put you in the picture, I promise.’

  Ford hesitated. Jaysmith remembered that it was brotherly love and loyalty which had brought him he
re rather than deep friendship for Bryant.

  ‘There is no way your sister can be involved in any of this, believe me,’ he said slowly. ‘Jacob’s seen the letters. He’ll have had them analysed upside-down and sideways. Urszula’s completely clear.’

  Even as he infused the lie with sincerity, he realized he was probably telling at least part of the truth. Hadn’t Anya said there’d been a burglary a few months earlier as a result of which they’d got the alarm system fitted? It must have been Jacob’s men, already looking for evidence of Bryant’s treachery. And like Jaysmith himself, all they had found had been the letters which they’d photographed for closer study. It was discovery of the relationship between Urszula and Bryant that had sent Adam and Davey to interrogate Ford. But at what point, and for what reason, had suspicion of Bryant hardened into certainty and his name gone on the target list? And why not just arrest him and squeeze everything he knew out of him?

  Unless of course it was all part of some great bluff and Bryant’s killing was to appear someone else’s responsibility.

  These thoughts flickered through his mind in a mere second, the same second which brought Ford to a decision.

  ‘Forty-eight hours,’ he said. ‘Ring me at home.’

  He thrust a printed address card at Jaysmith.

  ‘Forty-eight hours. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll talk to Stefan.’

  Jaysmith said, ‘Agreed.’

  They heard the front door open and Anya’s voice calling, ‘Jay! We’re back.’

  ‘In here,’ called Jaysmith.

  The domestic familiarity of greeting and response seemed finally to convince Ford. He nodded, either in confirmation or farewell, picked up his coat, pulled the homburg over his brow, and went through the french windows into the garden.

  The lounge door opened. Anya came in. Jaysmith went towards her to make sure she was delayed sufficiently for Ford to get quite clear, but she came into his arms with a movement so natural that he felt a surge of shame at his own duplicity.

  Chapter 25